People’s Monarchist Party (Portugal)

Partido Popular Monárquico

Last modified: 2024-11-23 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: people’s monarchist party | partido popular monárquico | ppm | monarchist | trident (blue) | psi |
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• Description of the Flag
• Presentation of P.P.M.
• New Monarchy (N.M.)

• Portuguese political flags
• Portuguese monarchists
• Portugal

Description of the Flag

White over blue, 3:1, with the letters "PPM" in white on the blue stripe and the party’s emblem in blue on the white stripe.
Vincent Morley, 09 Oct 1999

There are two variants of this flag shown in As Paredes na Revolução, a book about Portuguese political murals which I bought when I was in Lisbon some years ago. One variant is a blue flag, with a large white trident in the hoist and the letters "PPM" in white in the lower fly. The second is divided horizontally white over blue, the white stripe wider than the blue. A blue trident is centred in the white stripe and "PPM" in white is centred in the blue stripe. But what is the connection between the Portuguese monarchists and the trident? (I always thought it was the Greek letter psi but I couldn’t guess why it was used.)
Vincent Morley, 07 Sep 1997

The flag of PPM is very seldom seen, but a modern rendition of the pre-1910 Portuguese national flag appears in great numbers whenever the monarchics get together.
Jorge Candeias, 11 Feb 1998

Presentation of P.P.M.

The People’s Monarchic Party (PPM - Partido Popular Monárquico) is our only monarchic party. It’s a very small conservative party, that joined PPD and CDS in the AD coalition I mentioned before, and was capable of electing some members of parliament during that time. Later, became the first ecological party in Portugal. I don’t know if they still exist. Their flag is (evidentely) in blue and white: a white field with a blue trident and "PPM" also in blue above the trident.
Jorge Candeias, 5 Sep 1997

During the recent Portuguese general election campaign, and I happened to see a broadcast on behalf of PPM in which the speaker was flanked by the flag of the party and, perhaps more interestingly, by the older blue and white Portuguese flag.
Vincent Morley, 9 Oct 1999

It should be said that PPM is now a very small group and it failed to win any seats in the recent elections.
Vincent Morley, 14 Oct 1999

Vincent Morley reported from the portuguese book "As Paredes na Revolução" (about political murals) two P.P.M. flags are seen: Among these a blue flag, with a large white trident in the hoist and the letters "PPM" in white in the lower fly. The usual P.P.M. flag is seldom; this one is something I think I never saw (although I also have the book, somewhere).
António Martins-Tuválkin, 11 Feb 2009

In "Vlaggen" (i.e. Flags) Anton Jansen described Portuguese political flags: most of his information was obtained during a stay at Lisbon, September 1980 (gathering leaflets and flags, visiting parties' headquarters).
The PPM flag he describes matches the design of the one already on FOTW-ws. He bought one from Mr. João Camossa at PPM headquarters, Rua da Escola Politecnica: height about 70 cm, length about 73 cm (almost square, then?), width of blue stripe about 15 cm. Colours: white and light blue, representing the monarchy.
As to the psi, above mentioned Mr. Camossa told that it shows a person with open arms "com braços abertos".
Source:Article "Portugese partijsymbolen en -vlaggen" (i.e. Portuguese party symbols and flags) in "Vlaggen" no. 21 (1983): pp. 292-297.
Additional note in no. 22 (1983): p. 311. All illustrations b/w, one of which appears here in colour:
For further information click (in Portuguese): party webpage
Jan Mertens, 13 Feb 2009

In the 1980s it rivaled the far left parties with colourful graffiti murals throughout the country, many of them including flags. Some of these were accurate renderings of flags known to have been used in the cloth, but others not so.
Such is the case of the attached image, showing a plain white field with the party´s blue trident and the lower fly corner marked with three stripes of blue and light blue with white fimbriation.
This pattern was used by A.D., a coalition of which the monarchists of P.P.M. were the junior partner, in two electoral campaigns in 1980: The October parliament elections (in orange and blue) and in the ill-fated December presidential elections (in red and green). There might have been A.D. flags with these corner stripes back then, but the two-blues version of P.P.M. (likely a nostalgic lookback onto the A.D. after its 1983 dissolution, marking the end of P.P.M.´s aspirations to a cabinet seat) might have never existed outside this graffiti.
Some photos taken in several university locations in Lisbon, circa 1982 can be seen here
António Martins-Tuválkin, 9 Dec 2017

New Monarchy (N.M.)

1:1, image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 11 Dec 2017

1:1, image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 11 Dec 2017

The initialism "N.M." or "NM" stands for Nova Monarquia (= New Monarchy), which was a monarchist political organisation separate from P.P.M.; as far as I can remember, they never constituted a full fledged political party. There was some overlap in membership with P.P.M. as the linked photos attest, showing graffiti flags for both organisations on panels clearly authored by the same artist(s).
Two flag-like mural panels are shown in these 1983 Lisbon University graffiti here
Diagonal blue over red square flag with white serifless capitals "M" and "N" on each triangle, making use of the Miguelist colours (see left image).
Square red flag with very wide blue diagonal (Miguelist colours) bearing white serifless capitals "NM" under a white stylised royal crown (see left image).
One of two instances of this on the photo showing the Humanities Faculty wall seems to show the background not as a simple diagonal but as a zigzag resembling an S-rune, as used by German National Socialist SS. While some of these guys end up to become, or reveal themselves as, actual Nazis, back in the 1980s it was a no-go for all but the most extreme far right to use Nazi symbolism, and N.M. was merely far right but not neo-nazi/skinhead as a whole.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 11 Dec 2017

Monarchist Youth (J.M.)

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